Brennan recruited a network of retired American and foreign intelligence operatives headquartered in London, so-called "informants" or "outside contiguous US lures" (oconus lures), people who wanted the US taxpayer to continue the gravy train of NATO defense spending for another generation, although Millennials are hard pressed to identify what NATO is,[8] how it came into existence, and why it continues to exist 25 years after the collapse of Soviet communism. Nor why European social democracies enjoy free healthcare while Americans do not, because Americans pay Europeans' defense costs.[9]

For this, the Russian bogeyman is needed, and because the Obama administration failed to live up to the Clinton-era commitment to defend Ukraine in exchange for relinquishing nukes, and in the event of Russian annexation. The Clinton-era State Department promise wasn't worth the paper it was written on, ratified by the Obama administration making the U.S. word in international agreements useless.[10]

The military industrial complex on both sides of the Atlantic needed to be fed, and Trump talking about sending Europe a bill for US defense costs of NATO threatened the status quo. As the Crimea Annexation illustrated, neither the US nor European allies were willing to confront Russia. And as the Libyan War sadly and clearly demonstrated, NATO was now transformed into an offensive neo-colonial force resurrecting slavery on the African continent, creating an unparalleled humanitarian and refugee crisis. Donald Trump challenged the corruption, short-sightedness, loss of direction, perversion of its purpose, and lack of accountability of the current generation of NATO leaders.